Florida’s unemployment compensation system failing

The attempt to improve process is delaying the benefits badly needed by many

Tallahassee — When lawmakers passed a $63 million “modernization” of the state’s unemployment compensation system in 2011, proponents promised it would “improve the claims, benefits and appeals process.”

So far, the opposite has been true.

Instead of streamlining the system, the changes have created a technological mess that has blocked or delayed badly needed benefits to more than 100,000 Floridians who lost their jobs through no fault of their own.

The modernization project, dubbed “Project CONNECT,” was passed along partisan lines, with Democrats and some legal groups in opposition. So far, many of their fears have been realized, according to a Times-Union investigation:

• Over the program’s first 25 months, controversial assessments known as “Initial Skills Reviews” delayed benefits for more than 120,000 job applicants.

• Of those, nearly 15,000 were deemed ineligible for benefits only because they did not complete the reviews, which were not required prior to the 2011 changes.

When asked by a Senate committee if the assessments were working as designed, an official charged with overseeing aspects of the program asked, “Are we still being recorded?” then winked at the committee.

• Work overseeing the reviews — a contract worth nearly $5 million so far — was not competitively bid and was lumped into an existing state contract held by a Republican Party donor.

• The United States Department of Labor said portions of the reforms violated “applicable federal disability nondiscrimination law.” That was 10 months ago. The state took six months to propose a settlement and the Labor department has not yet agreed.

• The website that applicants now must use when applying for benefits has been riddled with errors, which has held up untold numbers of unemployment compensation benefits.

• The website, which users must get through just to access the Initial Skills Review, has been such a failure that the state has fined the current vendor, and is doubling its staff to deal with the claims backlog.

The flawed website has captured all the headlines as applicants flood Scott’s office with complaints, and Democrats try to use the issue as a political battering-ram. The 2011 reforms signed into law by Gov. Rick Scott required claims be filed online. Prior to that, only 55 percent of those seeking claims did so online.

Unnoticed, though, 120,006 people seeking unemployment compensation through September faced delays in receiving benefits for not completing the Initial Skills Review. That’s about one out of every eight applicants.

The state does not track how long those people faced delays, but officials said many were for two weeks or more. The maximum biweekly compensation checks is $275.

Of the 120,000, some 14,755 applicants were deemed ineligible for unemployment compensation benefits for failure to complete the Initial Skills Review, state records show.

In addition, many acknowledge the Initial Skills Reviews failed to live up to expectations. They were supposed to access each applicant’s skills, either to help with job placement or to identify areas where the job seeker needs additional training.

When asked last week during a Senate committee hearing if the reviews were working as intended, Chris Hart, president of Workforce Florida, responded, “Are we still being recorded?” before shooting a quick wink to lawmakers.

That was three months after a hearing when state Sen. Nancy Detert, R-Venice, slammed the reviews for being so simple a “third grader could pass them,” and questioned whether they were working as originally designed.

“Are we spending millions to help people, or are we spending millions to annoy unemployed people?” Detert, who chairs the Senate Commerce and Tourism Committee, challenged.

Detert’s consternation is noteworthy. She was a driving force behind the creation of the Initial Skills Reviews.

A TEST FEW TAKE SERIOUSLY

Officials with the Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO), which oversees the unemployment compensation system, downplayed the consequences, stressing that the thousands who were found ineligible for benefits for failure to take the review were less than 2 percent of the people seeking unemployment compensation between its August 2011 launch and September 2013.

Tom Clendenning, the department’s director of workforce services, told Detert’s committee that the reviews are designed to help “reemployment assistance claimants with getting back to work quicker.”

When addressing the committee, Clendenning did not have information related to the number of people who were denied benefits, or experienced delays because of the reviews — no one did.

Review-related numbers were not tracked by the state until the Times-Union paid the department to conduct an analysis creating the figures.

There is no pass/fail conclusion to the Initial Skills Review’s 45 questions focusing on math, reading, and the ability to locate information quickly. Applicants simply must complete the review to be eligible for benefits.

When Deteret called the test “pedestrian” and pressed Clendenning on the issue, he said it was a “valid concern” that people are not taking the test seriously and simply filling out answers in order to finish.

In an interview this month, Detert said she was frustrated with the department’s responses to her inquires for additional information.

“I’m done trying to get information from the department,” she said.

She said she is filing legislation that would make the reviews voluntary.

SYSTEM VIOLATES FEDERAL LAW

In 2011, supporters said the unemployment compensation system needed to be modernized.

“DEO works to provide the best tools to help job seekers evaluate their skills and find a job,” DEO spokeswoman Jessica Sims said. “The ISR helps regional workforce boards identify skills jobseekers have that can help them find work.”

From the start, opponents were wary. They argued the reviews added an unneeded impediment to people getting unemployment benefits. Among other things, they said, the test takes 45 minutes, and many job seekers are not computer-efficient.

“Six weeks after I lost my job and applied for unemployment, I still had not received a dollar from this benefit,” said Randi Brazer, a 43-year-old social worker who lost her job in 2012 when a St. Augustine outpatient psychiatric program closed its doors.

Her benefits were denied initially because she did not take the Initial Skills Review. She said she saw reference to the review when applying, but did not think it was required. Because she knew her field and skill-set, she thought she could bypass the review.

“Needless to say — I was overwhelmed, emotionally drained, financially depleted and not willing to accept this,” said Brazer, who is no longer unemployed.

She said the delay cost her four $275 unemployment payments despite “appealing the decision at two different levels of appeal.”

The state’s DEO has its own frustration, saying applicants are told “six separate times during the application process that they are required to complete the ISR.”

The delays and rejections are exactly the scenario feared by groups opposing the unemployment compensation changes. Nine months after the law took effect, the Miami Workers Center filed a complaint in May 2012 with the United States Department of Labor. In April 2013, the Labor department determined that the new unemployment system violated “applicable federal disability nondiscrimination law.”

As a result, the state was supposed to negotiate a “conciliatory agreement” with the Department of Labor to correct several problems. That agreement “must be signed within 60 days,” the Labor department instructed, but nearly one year later that has not occurred.

In October, DEO sent a defiant settlement proposal disagreeing with the Department of Labor and saying the state was not required to make changes. The proposal offered voluntary changes.

An agreement remains unsigned. The Department of Labor did not reply to multiple requests seeking information on why no agreement has been negotiated.

Gov. Rick Scott oversees DEO. His office did not answer direct questions about the system. A spokesman said only that the statement sent by DEO to the Labor department was also the governor’s position.

THE CONTRACT

After the 2011 reform package was passed, the Department of Economic Opportunity tacked responsibility for operating the new Initial Skills Reviews onto an existing contract held by a Nashville-based company.

That work was not competitively bid.

The first contract was for “Ready to Work,” an education program signed into law as a pilot program by former Gov. Jeb Bush in 2006. It became a top education priority for his successor, Republican Gov. Charlie Crist.

That program is separate from the Initial Skills Review, but the two are now part of the same contract.

Under one part of Ready to Work, job seekers take optional placement tests in math, reading and locating information. If they are deficient in any of those areas, they are offered training opportunities until their scores improve. Once complete, a participant gets a “readiness certificate” that certifies the job seeker has the “job skills necessary to succeed in today’s rapidly changing and competitive economy.”

The DEO admits it doesn’t know if the certificate helps people find jobs.

“DEO does not capture enough information to determine a correlation between participation in the Ready to Work program and job placement,” DEO spokeswoman Sims said.

From the beginning, there never seemed to be any intention of tracking the program’s ability to create jobs. The program’s contract says: “it is not possible to identify each and every work that will be created as the performance of this contract proceeds.”

The state has spent $40 million on Ready to Work. Nearly $64 million was budgeted. The remainder has been returned to the state.

The program was funded at its highest level under Crist, whose administration gave it $17.5 million for its first two years and $18 million over his final two years in office. Crist, now running for governor as a Democrat, deemed the program a priority, saying in his 2009 State of the State speech that it would “ensure job-seekers of all ages have the skills needed for most jobs today.”

Since Scott took office, funding caps have lowered Ready to Work payments to an average of $3.5 million annually.

The Initial Skills Review work was lumped onto the existing Ready to Work Contract without being competitively bid. That work has cost an additional $4.7 million over the review’s first two years.

That money has gone to Worldwide Interactive Network, the company that has run the program since 2006. It has given more than $400,000 in campaign contributions over that time, 80 percent of which went to the Republican Party of Florida.

During the November committee hearing, Detert raised concerns that spending on the program was not decreasing as the unemployment rate dropped and fewer people were taking the reviews.

After Clendenning told the committee that the Legislature controls the program’s budget, Detert hinted that she wanted funding levels cut.

“I hope all the Senators heard that,” she said. “Keep that in mind, please.”

NUMBERS TOUGH TO FIND

In theory, the reviews would allow local workforce boards to refer a job seeker for additional training or potential employment opportunities.

Detert’s scorn and the quick wink from a top jobs official during a public meeting, however, indicate that the state doubts that’s happening as designed.

Suspicious Democrats hammered the idea during the 2011 legislative session. When Miami Workers Center filed its complaint with the Department of Labor nine months later, it complained that the changes put an unneeded barrier between those unemployed through no fault of their own and the jobless benefits they are entitled to.

It noted that in the eight months after the 2011 changes took place, denials jumped from 4,548 to 24,668 for a specific category that contained ISR-related reviews.

Miami Workers Center blamed the new system: the review was offered in only three languages — English, Spanish, Creole — many job seekers are not computer-proficient and live in areas with limited internet connections, and the it takes 45 minutes to complete the review.

“Changes uniformly benefited employers, making it more difficult for unemployed workers to access, qualify for, or maintain benefits,” the complaint reads.

The group cited broad figures that painted a picture of increased rejections, but could not include specific numbers related to the Initial Skills Review. There was a good reason for omitting the numbers: They did not exist.

The Department of Economic Opportunity did not have those numbers broken out of larger categories of data until the Times-Union filed a public-records request and paid nearly $400 to have the department run an analysis.

In the April 2013 determination prompted by the Miami Workers Center complaint, the Labor department said the Initial Skills Review’s customer-service phone line was insufficient, and that there should be a statement on the site explicitly saying that people who are unable to read or write are exempt from taking the review.

CONNECT WEB SITE

The CONNECT website has been a contentious issue in recent months, as the Scott administration has been forced to admit it has been a disaster.

He has faced political heat from Democrats, including U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, over the website’s early failures.

The state started fining Deloitte Consulting, the Minnesota-based vendor that operates the site, $15,000-per-day. The state also withheld a $3 million payment from the company and used federal funds to hire an additional 330 people and an additional vendor to help process claims.

In addition, state DEO officials met with Department of Labor staff in January, then announced they would be issuing benefits temporarily to many whose claims have been held up.

At issue is the process of verifying a benefits request when there is a dispute between an applicant and former employer, a process known as “adjudication.” Claims have been getting stuck in that process.

Scott’s office has been bombarded by emails and calls from unemployed workers struggling to use the website. One was from Carl Wilkes, a Clay County resident who filed for unemployment in September after losing his job of more than five years.

“It took 10 weeks to receive my first check, which was enough to pay past due bills and late charges,” he wrote in an email to the Times-Union. “I more than likely would still be waiting if I didn’t write the governor.

“The unemployment system in this state really is people-unfriendly.”

The problems that flared after the website went live in October 2013 were not the first set of problems.

The website was supposed to go live in December 2012, but officials knew by May 2012 that technical problems would delay the launch.

The department has been sending daily updates on the website’s progress.

“Our adjudication unit continues to work at a high level of productivity,” DEO Executive Director Jesse Panuccio said in the Feb. 12 update, “which means disputed issues are being reviewed and processed in a timely manner.”

What a corrupt mess. Half million dollar kickbacks given to the republican party before the corrupt company even got the job done. A job they were given without competition. Laughing with lawmakers about the program doing what was intended. I think we all now understand Mr. Hart, the program is working just like Rick Scott intended: giving money intended for the unemployed to cronies and the republican party, while inflicting pain on unemployed trying to feed their children. The head of workforce should be called Mr hartless.